Lights! Cameras! Invasion!
source :Burma time/Mhoneshweyee
04/05/01
A wave of reality movies is sweeping Thai cinemas, led by the record-breaking Bang Rajan--a nicely timed epic based on long-running Thai-Burmese tensions.
Thousands of Burmese soldiers suddenly sweep across the border into Thailand, razing villages in their path to the capital. It's not happening in reality--yet. But such scenes are filling Thai cinemas as--amid new border tensions--film producers play on the long-standing enmity between the two neighbors.
The "based-on-a-true-story" formula is fuelling a movie boom in Thailand. And, while it may prove hard to emulate the success of Crouching Tiger,Hidden Dragon, the martial-arts romance that picked up four Oscars at the recent Academy Awards, some in Bangkok's entertainment business are hailing this year as the start of a new glittering era for Thai films at home--and perhaps even internationally.
According to its makers, BEC-Tero Entertainment, Bang Rajan took top position as the Thai movie world's biggest box office success in March by grossing more than 150 million baht ($3.4 million)--just 50 million baht less than Titanic, among the top-earning films in Thailand of all time.
A gory epic, Bang Rajan is based fairly loosely on the story of valiant Thai villagers who in 1767 battled invading Burmese warriors heading to sack the then-Siamese capital of Ayudhaya. To this day, most Thais haven't forgiven the Burmese for the attack.
Another historical Thai-Burmese movie seeking to play on popular nationalist passions is in production. Suriyothai is the story of the life of a fabled Thai queen of the same name who perished fighting the Burmese about a century before Ayudhaya was laid to waste. With a budget of 200 million baht, it's the most expensive Thai movie to date.Bigger budgets for films are part of the "true-story" genre, which has spread beyond Thai-Burmese animosity as it attracts ever-larger numbers of Thais to cinemas. In contrast, stale, sloppy soap operas for teenagers remain the staple of Thai television. They were traditionally also the main source of inspiration for the movie industry--along with gangster films. But, it seems, no longer.
Currently in production, the film Moon Hunter, for example, tells the dramatic story of student leader Sekson Prasertkul, who fled to the jungle to join the Communist Party of Thailand after spearheading one of hailand's most telling political upheavals: the 1973 student-led uprising in Bangkok that brought down a military dictatorship. The film's director, Bandit Rittikol, says he wasn't worried about political censorship because the movie is just part of the new trend.
"Some 10 years ago, film budgets were 5 million baht," he says. "Now we can ask for 15 million baht, and because of our content, which now no longer just aims at Thai teenagers, we are looking at the world market." Whether or not Moon Hunter is a hit at home or abroad, the current No. 1 storyline for movies concerns relations with Burma. The makers of Bang Rajan and Suriyothai had no way of knowing that they would receive a boost from real life when they started production in 1999 and last year respectively. But a skirmish and subsequent standoff in February between Thai and Burmese troops in Thailand's northern Mai Sai border area fused screen drama and reality. The clash also involved the ethnic-minority rebels of Burma's Shan State Army. Months later, the border remains tense with a military build-up.
Though it was released in November, Bang Rajan is still drawing large audiences, in part reflecting an increase in resentment against the Burmese among many Thais since February. "Even your proverbial Thai taxi driver rants about the Burmese when you raise the issue," says one startled Thai-speaking foreign resident in Bangkok. "I've never heard such venom before." Exploiting such sentiments wasn't the aim of film-makers BEC-Tero--an entertainment conglomerate formed by the amalgamation of BEC World, which owns the Channel 3 TV network, and Tero Entertainment in 1998. "We didn't intend to show any political feelings in the movie," says BEC-Tero Managing Director Brian Marcar. In the film, Thai villagers make their own crude weapons to harass the invading Burmese army. "We showed people protecting things that were theirs. Thais can identify with it," Marcar says.
Ironically, Marcar is an Anglo-Burmese who was born in Burma but is now a Thai citizen. He says that he will now try out the overseas market for the film, which cost 60 million baht and has a cast of 1,000 Thais. The previous biggest commercial success in Thailand was the 1999 ghost film Nang Nak, which only had fairly limited success in the region.
Bang Rajan's director, Thanit Jitnukul, says making the film was a personal quest. He, like other Thais, learned of the villagers' heroic, but futile, battle against the Burmese when he was at school. "I first thought about the story as a movie 10 years ago, but then the industry wasn't ready for big budget movies," says Thanit, 45. The Education Ministry now shows Bang Rajan to school students and it has also been screened for some army units.
Marcar says Bang Rajan has instilled a new sense of pride in the already nationalistic Thais with the message that it is worth fighting hard for what is dearest to your heart.
Leading Thai film critic Dumras Rodjanapiches predicts that Suriyothai, directed by Chatreechalerm Yokol, will also be a hit when it is released in August. "It is the sort of subject that now interests Thai people," says Dumras, who however admits that both Suriyothai and Bang Rajan are based on "more legend than fact." He says Suriyothai benefited from the extra investment available for movies in Thailand to produce a higher-quality product. "There is now not so much constraint on movie budgets, so films are improving technically and becoming of more international appeal."
At a Bankok press conference in March, Hong Kong-based Golden Harvest Entertainment distribution director Teerachai Triwongwaranat made the same point about the increased appeal of Thai films abroad, and urged production companies in Thailand to push their films and TV series on to the international market by linking up with multinational distributors. "We believe Thai film producers are second to none in the region," he said. Bang Rajan's Thanit is one such leading Thai film-maker. He won an award for best director at a pan-Asian film festival in Deauville, France, in March and is equally upbeat about international prospects for historical action films. "We can't compete with Hollywood, but I think period dramas will help us achieve our goal of adopting a new identity" separate from soap operas for teenagers, he says.
Despite Bang Rajan being a hit , there has been a small personal price for Thanit. He recalls that while he was in Deauville he met a Burmese movie star[EINDRA KYAW ZIN]. "She was very friendly at first. Then she asked me about my movie. I told her, she saw it and refused to talk to me again," he says.
Source: Rodney Tasker